Friends are only friends so long as you know them. There is an awkward gap between when you knew everything about someone and not knowing very much at all. Not knowing their schedule, their new habits, their new ambitions, their troubles, their interests. Since when did Evans become the most decorated underwater basket weaver in Vegas? The gap between knowing someone and not knowing is a tricky thing. It starts slowly, like ivy over a bridge. You barely notice the ivy and then it has covered the bridge and your yard and is coming up the porch steps. Days turn into weeks into months or seconds into hours into days. Your connection is changed and by the nature of the change is difficult to fully appreciate. An everyday update is weekly check-in and suddenly a year or two has past. What do you say? Say I forgot you. Say we forgot each other. I am changed and you are changed. Say hello. Say I have missed you. The longer you or I wait the faster the ivy grows. Soon we will not even remember to look. I love my friends, I miss them and I mean it. The tragedy, humor and stupidity of my condition is that some days I see perfectly and clearly the solutions to troubles like these and it is 5:00am in the morning and John is scowling at me for staying up and my friends are all asleep. My own brother wanted to know why I never called him. It was in part because when I thought to call he wouldn’t appreciate being woken up with my intentions or ideas. My best ideas and intentions come when I am least prepared to follow through in any tangible way. I say I will call and I don’t. I forget and get embarrassed. It is difficult to explain to the one person who knows me best and most. If he doesn’t get me then the people that do or did or will are rare indeed. I write, but not as much as I should to hone any craft. I am prolific if nothing else. I try to imagine what would be appropriate or usefull to anyone. I try to imagine how or why a blog would be anything other than an archive. It will be an electronic conjoin of the binders and binders full of stuff here, going unread and unfinished. I wonder if I am ever going to be brave enough to be useful to anyone else. I am very good at trying. I am very good at noticing opportunities to make change. Sometimes I am very good at knowing what to say. I am very good at connecting to a disproportionately diverse number of people. I fit it. I find an in. I find a way when I am cornered with real people in public in unavoidable situations. I make friends easily and lose them often. I am diametrically both shy and outgoing. I talk louder when I am nervous and have never managed to back down from a confrontation that required bravado or potential bleeding. I am not afraid to die but terribly afraid of failing to live. When it comes to being behaved I can offer that I am always behaved. Sometimes badly behaved, but what is it the HAVE in behavior? Can I have all of me? Every part, even the terrible bits and the grisly parts? Is it possible to roast the whole beast and enjoy every bit? Can I let you see me, hear me and expect that you will be anything but disgusted? I have intimate conversations with people that I know are just listening to me go. I understand that I am often much more invested in my idea of a relationship than the other party. It used to torture me. With some help I have learned to accept what happens. I have also learned to enjoy every bit of happiness I get from people. Though I am married and happier than ever with my husband, I have had the distinct honor of being in love over and over. I find myself drawn to people as powerfully as I am disgusted by them. Stupidity, cruelty, waste, excess, sloth, abuse, racism, sexism all the isms – those are the things that make me angry. Those occasions when I see my worst in others I am openly disgusted, with them and myself. How will I ever dim down my eyes and live in the shade? I don’t crave the white lights of hyper reality and beauty and bliss and I certainly don’t want to live in the dreary, dreamy, dark without hope. How can I hate people and have so much optimism about their possibilities? I dream of indifference. I would love to not notice. It would be nice to be an emotional amputee. I would love to not see jowls and feel hatred. I would love to hear the voice of man and not be moved by his words, or timber, or cadence. I would love to smell smells and just notice, not smelling something and being slingshotted into the past into a past place or hurled forward into the oblivion of possibility. What life is this that I live in the never still between? I take a moment to feel sorry for myself and then the opposite comes as certainly as a coin has three sides. Tales negative, heads positive and the narrow rim of the coin is neutral. I wait for my coin to land on the edge. I type and get excited by a new descriptive way to say the same ideas. I repeat myself in frustration, with fear that I will not be heard or accepted. I feel sorry for myself just long enough to make another way to describe what is happening. Then I realized of course that I am truly more blessed than any one single woman I have ever or will probably ever meet. Healthy, pretty children who are quick-witted and not retarded. My husband gets angry, gets scared, gets disappointed, gets sad for me but then he does the one thing I can’t imagine anyone else doing – he gets over it and we keep going. He sees me and hears the things I say when I am really mad. Angry mad and mad mad. The mad mad can be terrifying and exciting. If you jumped out of plane most everyone would be terrified, unless you could slow your life way down and notice that you are falling out of the sky. You might be able to respect and appreciate your position in the world. You might be able to appreciate your ability not to freak completely out. My life is not like jumping out of plane or like a box of chocolates. I am still finding new ways to describe my life. Why would I try? Because I want to hear from someone else that they feel like me or hear like me or smell like me. Perhaps there is another person who can describe a thing without using three dissimilar adjectives and two ors.
My hippos are pink and green. On the Omara Reserve in Kenya the animal that is more feared than any other is the hippo. Yet the hippo is often displayed in our culture in a cute, endearing manner. Hippos are nocturnal creatures that seem in many ways to be polar their environments and polar to their expected image. Hippos spend all day in the river resting while other animals are out and about. Hippos spend most of their lives in rivers up to their ears and eyes but do not have the ability to swim even if their lives depend on it. Hippos when pressured to be out in sunlight excrete a body fluid that acts as a natural sunscreen. They make their own sunscreen! It is an amour against the African sun. Hippo jaws can exert 1800 lbs of pressure and have razor sharp teeth. With all of this fierce ability hippos do little beyond kill more people every year than any other predator and nap. They can sleep semi-submerged. Still these hippos protect their young with such devotion and determination that you can’t help but be drawn to them. They are enormous, fat, discolored ugly and all things I generally disapprove of in humans. At first they seem to be lazy and slovenly and fat and just useless. When looking further a person learns that hippos aren’t lazy, they conserve energy when it’s hot out and go out at night when there is less chance of incident and more opportunity for food. Fat hippo bodies are perfect for river life and their shear girth gives license to behave any way they want. If you don’t believe me imagine a big fatass black lady eating at the mall with her kids acting up. Are you going to correct them, aggressively? Imagine being annoyed with that woman and not saying anything. Imagine seeing some conservative guy telling her to pay attention to her rowdy kids. Imagine her on the rise up out of her chair all wild and crazy. That is sort of how I see hippos and sort of how I catalogue events in my life. Was the calm green hippo handling business or did the crazy fun pink hippo come out and play? In blood? Where was I going again? I just drifted and spent a few moments watching tv. A character just said, “Success is the best revenge” I don’t have much success so I can’t say how I’d like it. I can’t imagine I wouldn’t like it but failing a good bit seems to be working out for me for me, right now, today. Goodnight, good-day and good God I started on ivy covered vine and ended up here. Right here.
Kimberly Lenora Brown Stansfield
- Pink and Green Hippo
- 'I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live'. Albert Schweitzer "Nobody said not to go" Emily Hahn
Friday, August 21, 2009
What to teach my children please.
What To Teach My Children Please
If I have succeeded as a mother it was to teach my children to do the following things:
1.) Swing wide of nature, go gently on the earth and its creatures.
2.) Trust their natural feminine human instincts and not to be deluded by the nonsense of “stranger danger” and/or the modern notion of different is wrong or bad. Doesn’t discriminate based on appearance. Ugly, blind, crippled, or crazy- everyone has something to offer. Unless they feel wrong. Then you stay the hell away from them. Or knock them out. And swing hard. Fight like life depends on it; it does.
3.) There is no fair fight. Ever.
4.) Being a bully can haunt you, so don’t throw a punch you don’t want to keep in your back pocket.
5.) Marketing is a con and tv lies. Watch the art, like the art show but don’t drink the kool aid on the way out.
6.) Suck it up! Be a culture, wisdom, interest VAMPIRE. If it remotely interests you, learn something about it, anything. For this reason only USE your friends and their friends and their friends.
7.) Don’t censor. Every bit of knowledge can be passed to a child, just toned down. Human body parts, sexuality, drug abuse, religions, belief or non belief in their scary ideas about aliens, werewolves, witches, God.
8.) Tell the truth. The shoes are ugly. The needle will hurt. But it will only hurt for few moments. If you lie about the small stuff there is no trust. Trust takes years longer to earn than lose. So start telling the truth immediately.
9.) Be willing to bet. Taking risk instills personal accountability and the willingness to pull your hair back and lay your neck bare to execution.
10.) It is O.K. to be silly. Especially in public. It confuses people and gives them something to talk about.
11.) Get up early.
12.) Never duck, make faces or run amok because it is raining. You will likely get just as wet and look stupid to boot.
13.) The girls have learned the importance of being on time – because I am always late. I suspect they will be early to everything as soon as they can drive.
14.) Art is never wrong. Not your taste, not your taste – but when you are making it, art is not wrong. No one can tell you, your artwork is bad. Period.
15.) That we know everything we have ever known. Once we learn something we KNOW it. Memory is just a retrieval system with some useful tricks for faster service. Get to know those tricks but always trust that you just KNOW something. On standardized tests, and in life – KNOW what you are doing.
16.) A Southern Woman’s favorite color is Shiny followed by Tight then Fuzzy. (It goods to know how to laugh at where you’re from).
17.) If it calls for margarine use butter. If it calls for shortening use lard. The better the fat the better.
18.) How to rack, break & play billiards.
19.) How to drive a manual transmission car.
20.) How to load and unload, properly handle and adequately fire a handgun and rifle.
21.) How to swim.
22.) How to call 911 and use the phonebook.
23.) How to properly identify authority figures and genuine EMS, rescue and other safety workers from impostors and rent-a-wreck folks.
24.) How to respect their teachers and schools and still remain true to their values. Understanding that we would always support them as parents so long as they used good manners and followed a chain of command. Even kids in the second grade need to know they have the right to really get up and go pee if they have to. I hope my girls know that.
25.) Gimme three steps: The right to ask 3 Times. Mom can I? No.
a. But I really want to and it is a good plan see. I decline again.
b. She has once last chance to go gather her evidence, rally dad or convince me –
c. Three Nos and you are out. Done. Not an all day struggle of ideas or new ways to ask the same question over and over.
26.) To be discrete.
27.) To be modest. Ok a bit modest.
28.) Virginity is a gift you only get to give yourself – ONCE.
29.) Independence is freedom and a union is a bond but they are not mutually exclusive.
30.) When you think of getting married take out a cheap plastic twelve inch ruler and look at it, hard. Now think of how many years you intend on being married to your spouse. Me and John agreed to 70 years way back in 1991 when he gave me the ring. Now put however many marks, say seventy on a piece of paper and look at it and imagine your married life. Happy. Now imagine a bad year. One whole bad year in seventy, imagine the reason? Look at it on paper. How tiny it looks it that long year. Seem hard to imagine? If ever you find yourself with marriage trouble put it to the seventy year test. Really seem hard – stretch those tick marks – all the way out, one for every month of your marriage and keep asking? A piece of paper with 12 month sections for seventy years is longer than you would think. Is this a deal breaker? I married my best friend and we made a deal, a promise. 70 years. A few bad months or even a bad year is easy to put into perspective with the proper ruler.
What I have yet to teach my daughters and would love help with:
1) How not to worry about opinions.
2) How to perpetuate motion or put toilet paper back on the role.
3) How to see what I want them to find/retrieve the first time they look.
4) How to not get personally involved with other peoples hurts.
5) How to tell me when I have made them angry.
6) How to spell or care about spelling/grammar.
7) How to see/hear/understand those slippery symbols that are math.
If I have succeeded as a mother it was to teach my children to do the following things:
1.) Swing wide of nature, go gently on the earth and its creatures.
2.) Trust their natural feminine human instincts and not to be deluded by the nonsense of “stranger danger” and/or the modern notion of different is wrong or bad. Doesn’t discriminate based on appearance. Ugly, blind, crippled, or crazy- everyone has something to offer. Unless they feel wrong. Then you stay the hell away from them. Or knock them out. And swing hard. Fight like life depends on it; it does.
3.) There is no fair fight. Ever.
4.) Being a bully can haunt you, so don’t throw a punch you don’t want to keep in your back pocket.
5.) Marketing is a con and tv lies. Watch the art, like the art show but don’t drink the kool aid on the way out.
6.) Suck it up! Be a culture, wisdom, interest VAMPIRE. If it remotely interests you, learn something about it, anything. For this reason only USE your friends and their friends and their friends.
7.) Don’t censor. Every bit of knowledge can be passed to a child, just toned down. Human body parts, sexuality, drug abuse, religions, belief or non belief in their scary ideas about aliens, werewolves, witches, God.
8.) Tell the truth. The shoes are ugly. The needle will hurt. But it will only hurt for few moments. If you lie about the small stuff there is no trust. Trust takes years longer to earn than lose. So start telling the truth immediately.
9.) Be willing to bet. Taking risk instills personal accountability and the willingness to pull your hair back and lay your neck bare to execution.
10.) It is O.K. to be silly. Especially in public. It confuses people and gives them something to talk about.
11.) Get up early.
12.) Never duck, make faces or run amok because it is raining. You will likely get just as wet and look stupid to boot.
13.) The girls have learned the importance of being on time – because I am always late. I suspect they will be early to everything as soon as they can drive.
14.) Art is never wrong. Not your taste, not your taste – but when you are making it, art is not wrong. No one can tell you, your artwork is bad. Period.
15.) That we know everything we have ever known. Once we learn something we KNOW it. Memory is just a retrieval system with some useful tricks for faster service. Get to know those tricks but always trust that you just KNOW something. On standardized tests, and in life – KNOW what you are doing.
16.) A Southern Woman’s favorite color is Shiny followed by Tight then Fuzzy. (It goods to know how to laugh at where you’re from).
17.) If it calls for margarine use butter. If it calls for shortening use lard. The better the fat the better.
18.) How to rack, break & play billiards.
19.) How to drive a manual transmission car.
20.) How to load and unload, properly handle and adequately fire a handgun and rifle.
21.) How to swim.
22.) How to call 911 and use the phonebook.
23.) How to properly identify authority figures and genuine EMS, rescue and other safety workers from impostors and rent-a-wreck folks.
24.) How to respect their teachers and schools and still remain true to their values. Understanding that we would always support them as parents so long as they used good manners and followed a chain of command. Even kids in the second grade need to know they have the right to really get up and go pee if they have to. I hope my girls know that.
25.) Gimme three steps: The right to ask 3 Times. Mom can I? No.
a. But I really want to and it is a good plan see. I decline again.
b. She has once last chance to go gather her evidence, rally dad or convince me –
c. Three Nos and you are out. Done. Not an all day struggle of ideas or new ways to ask the same question over and over.
26.) To be discrete.
27.) To be modest. Ok a bit modest.
28.) Virginity is a gift you only get to give yourself – ONCE.
29.) Independence is freedom and a union is a bond but they are not mutually exclusive.
30.) When you think of getting married take out a cheap plastic twelve inch ruler and look at it, hard. Now think of how many years you intend on being married to your spouse. Me and John agreed to 70 years way back in 1991 when he gave me the ring. Now put however many marks, say seventy on a piece of paper and look at it and imagine your married life. Happy. Now imagine a bad year. One whole bad year in seventy, imagine the reason? Look at it on paper. How tiny it looks it that long year. Seem hard to imagine? If ever you find yourself with marriage trouble put it to the seventy year test. Really seem hard – stretch those tick marks – all the way out, one for every month of your marriage and keep asking? A piece of paper with 12 month sections for seventy years is longer than you would think. Is this a deal breaker? I married my best friend and we made a deal, a promise. 70 years. A few bad months or even a bad year is easy to put into perspective with the proper ruler.
What I have yet to teach my daughters and would love help with:
1) How not to worry about opinions.
2) How to perpetuate motion or put toilet paper back on the role.
3) How to see what I want them to find/retrieve the first time they look.
4) How to not get personally involved with other peoples hurts.
5) How to tell me when I have made them angry.
6) How to spell or care about spelling/grammar.
7) How to see/hear/understand those slippery symbols that are math.
Like Punching Jesus
Fucking Him Was Like Punching Jesus – very dangerous and wrong. Altogether as selfishly as it was gratifying. I’d wanted to do it for years but waited on principal, finally giving over to carnal knowledge and pushing everything toward our pelvic entanglement. Pushing downward and struggling like mad to receive that one glorious drop of sweat from his face or hair. One single drop of proof and nourishment; full in the knowledge that it was real, it was happening. His sweat into my mouth quenched all that was ever missing and poisoned me with the relish of taste that would linger but not stay. One drop as a magical elixir holding time; a halting, to bind him into me, more even than the traditional fluid of lust. I licked the air below his face and pushed with all might to meet him, accept him and then hush the reasons to leave sooner. I think I always knew that if ever I would have him in me, the beginning would turn into the ending, counting down and backwards the going away. Now it never hurts to think of him, us, there conjoined, now if my arms fold and I think of him, my hips clench into a happy smile, remembering sweating secretly away. Punching Jesus would be the terrible thing, the dark thing I’d wanted. Getting away with it was glory and happy and memory and white light. Withdrawal and sorrow have long since faded and I select the perfection to review, hold high.
Klaxon Calling
Klaxon Calling
Oh to hear the klaxon call
The blaring naw to announce, beckon
A siren singing a nagging song
Come this way, do this thing
Right away, right now and sharply
It irked me then as I shuffled or ran
To fill my cup with duty or watch
That dark drink warming, waking
The long deep underneath thing
Never ceasing, never known, trusted
We ride in the sloshing belly of this mother
Abliged to follow the klaxon call
Mostly now I find I stand directionless
Waiting for the wind to blow
An order to move,
How holding fast has made me old
Abliged to wait for a call not coming
I was never patriotic, never really
I did my bit without paying attention
To how the rules gave me something
To whale against, to rage against
The sea rages against the break, the wall
The sailor in peace rages against the rule
My sailor is home waiting to hear
Any one thing that will compel
Action, service, creativity
A boundary to break, a parameter to push
I am a prisoner without a prison
Diseased with delusions of reminisce
Parentless, museless, drifting
Oh to hear the klaxon call
The blaring naw to announce, beckon
A siren singing a nagging song
Come this way, do this thing
Right away, right now and sharply
It irked me then as I shuffled or ran
To fill my cup with duty or watch
That dark drink warming, waking
The long deep underneath thing
Never ceasing, never known, trusted
We ride in the sloshing belly of this mother
Abliged to follow the klaxon call
Mostly now I find I stand directionless
Waiting for the wind to blow
An order to move,
How holding fast has made me old
Abliged to wait for a call not coming
I was never patriotic, never really
I did my bit without paying attention
To how the rules gave me something
To whale against, to rage against
The sea rages against the break, the wall
The sailor in peace rages against the rule
My sailor is home waiting to hear
Any one thing that will compel
Action, service, creativity
A boundary to break, a parameter to push
I am a prisoner without a prison
Diseased with delusions of reminisce
Parentless, museless, drifting
Hurt Girl, Sister, Mother
Hurt Girl, Sister, Mother
You will never be the apple of his eye
You never were and never will be
But neither will she and never was she
She was stranded there just like you
Only pressured by your jealousy, fear
Your failures have been lust, greed, pride
Lust for the golden star sticker, a wedding reception
Greed for attention missed and otherwise
Pride for the ordinary, the trivial you make important
Yourself promotion is effortless and ceaseless
I weep for your progeny and the pressure you pound
I too was pummeled by a proud mother
I survived and will while you wallow, mourn again
Over and over making her death less important
Than your grieving life, proving life
You child is smart but not exceptionally so
Your degree was hard earned but not exceptionally so
Your marriage was rich but not exceptionally so
Your divorce was tragic but not exceptionally so
Your engagement was simple but not exceptionally so
Your life, your drama is interesting but not exceptionally so
Your gratitude was demonstrated but not exceptionally so
Live within the confines of your ability
Spend with the boundaries of your ability
Promote others with the passion you give yourself
Rest in the bliss of the ordinary wonder that is life
Your life, your gift, your impact, your true impact
Do something, other than parent, other than daughter
Other than sister, be something unlike your companion
Your environment, your status, your purse, your car
Be honest if for only with yourself, be honest
Who are you – Why is it so very important to please
To impress, to charm, to outmaneuver with regret
Your bribery of sadness and prideful boasting
Leave me nothing about you aside your way
Poor girl, sad girl, hurt girl, daddy didn’t this
Daddy didn’t that, husband didn’t let me be this
Husband didn’t let me be that, art girl, skater girl,
Cut girl, tattoo girl, pierced up, passed around then
Buttoned down, conservative Born-again republican,
a true chameleon so truly engineered fully
Undercover in a better imaginary world
You’ve been too long forgetting where the
Wallpaper leaves off and yourself begins
You are too covered in labels and diversions
Your are too consumed with your resume
To notice you already got the job
You will never be the apple of his eye
You never were and never will be
But neither will she and never was she
She was stranded there just like you
Only pressured by your jealousy, fear
Your failures have been lust, greed, pride
Lust for the golden star sticker, a wedding reception
Greed for attention missed and otherwise
Pride for the ordinary, the trivial you make important
Yourself promotion is effortless and ceaseless
I weep for your progeny and the pressure you pound
I too was pummeled by a proud mother
I survived and will while you wallow, mourn again
Over and over making her death less important
Than your grieving life, proving life
You child is smart but not exceptionally so
Your degree was hard earned but not exceptionally so
Your marriage was rich but not exceptionally so
Your divorce was tragic but not exceptionally so
Your engagement was simple but not exceptionally so
Your life, your drama is interesting but not exceptionally so
Your gratitude was demonstrated but not exceptionally so
Live within the confines of your ability
Spend with the boundaries of your ability
Promote others with the passion you give yourself
Rest in the bliss of the ordinary wonder that is life
Your life, your gift, your impact, your true impact
Do something, other than parent, other than daughter
Other than sister, be something unlike your companion
Your environment, your status, your purse, your car
Be honest if for only with yourself, be honest
Who are you – Why is it so very important to please
To impress, to charm, to outmaneuver with regret
Your bribery of sadness and prideful boasting
Leave me nothing about you aside your way
Poor girl, sad girl, hurt girl, daddy didn’t this
Daddy didn’t that, husband didn’t let me be this
Husband didn’t let me be that, art girl, skater girl,
Cut girl, tattoo girl, pierced up, passed around then
Buttoned down, conservative Born-again republican,
a true chameleon so truly engineered fully
Undercover in a better imaginary world
You’ve been too long forgetting where the
Wallpaper leaves off and yourself begins
You are too covered in labels and diversions
Your are too consumed with your resume
To notice you already got the job
Touch Bases, Are We On The Same Page?
Folks who have never held the memo or read the minutes or contract documents cannot use the phrase, “on the same page” similarly folks who have never worn a uniform or gone to practice or held a ball should not use the phrase, “touch bases”. Come on. Saying stuff like this does not make you more important than you really are! The only base I ever encountered was second base in high school and flew right past that into being the kind a woman truly annoyed by this type of posturing.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Afterbirth, My Wrinkled Hands
Sometime in the night or yesterday in last few days while I was distracted with noise and blather the last husks of my chrysalis fell heavily down away from the last place I held them firmly, my hands. Oh my hands were even and silky and hidden in this shroud. I look down now and know that some time recently that old, harbored, same guarded afterbirth must have fallen away and dragged down the sheath of time that kept my hands. I feel a light and emptiness in my cradle and I see a light and emptiness in my hands. These hands are not plump with youth, they are thinning and telling. They are her hands and I am glad to see her. I just need to take time to really notice this falling away.
3/16/2009 1:49 PM
Afterbirth
Orphaned again but not dropped in the floor of the hospital
Left with the swing of a slap, but not the sting of a slap
A calloused face has no feeling during manners undone
The most useful and peculiar motion of this dropping
Is that during the fall she can only notice the event
She wasn’t not nauseous or confused or afraid
Only noticing that it was beginning, this end
How clever, clear and certain she felt feeling
About not feeling, not fearing, no anger
No lost standing or waiting, just done.
Kimberly L. Stansfield –
3/16/2009 1:49 PM
Afterbirth
Orphaned again but not dropped in the floor of the hospital
Left with the swing of a slap, but not the sting of a slap
A calloused face has no feeling during manners undone
The most useful and peculiar motion of this dropping
Is that during the fall she can only notice the event
She wasn’t not nauseous or confused or afraid
Only noticing that it was beginning, this end
How clever, clear and certain she felt feeling
About not feeling, not fearing, no anger
No lost standing or waiting, just done.
Kimberly L. Stansfield –
Moving To Costa Rica
In the early parts of 2009 my family planned to relocate from small town, Greer, South Carolina to points unknown in Costa Rica. I don’t remember the exact day or date that John suggested we move our family to a third-world country, but I remember distinctly how excited I was with the notion. We were going to travel much of Costa Rica before deciding where to settle. We began to plan and prepare. We talked about how to go and what we would take, how long it would take to be ready to actually board a plane. We discussed what we actually needed of our possessions and then we long talks about what we wanted to own, had we become just objects in our own home? Were we over-consuming, were we complaining about the very lives we’d made for ourselves. The more we examined how much excess we held on to, the more clearly it was to us that we needed to change our lives so that we would be more in line with our values. We started saving the large amount of cash necessary for our travels. Our two daughters began to mention how much money we could put in our Costa Rica cash box if we skipped the fast food and made sandwiches. We wanted to explore and travel, we wanted to more respect our community and respect the childhoods of our children. We had discussions with the children about what five things they would grab if the house were on fire. We asked what each would grab if they could take five things for the other members of the family. How many boxes of holiday cards did we need to reassure ourselves we’d had good birthdays and good Christmases? How many handprints and elementary school papers do we need to feel like good parents? Were we held captive by gifts accepted long ago, or photos and letters we didn’t intend to enjoy? We wanted to narrow our possessions so that our most beloved treasures would fit in a cedar armoire we own. The very best of all our things, based solely on our personal feelings; objects made special by our conditions, not by a price-tag - that is what we kept. A tiny wooden train car, less than size of an egg, it was left in our V.W. Bus. John loves it. I discovered that more than art or any other thing, I treasured a green beaten up wooden tool box. It had been used long ago by John’s grandfather at the textile mill. Riley had to have her blankie and Finley wanted to keep something my mom gave her. Our plan was to store that armoire at my aunt’s house and go to South America with just a suitcase each. We planned to send for our treasure when we were ready to settle. My husband came to me in January or early February and put us on the track to move. We did hundreds of hours of research about individual cities, towns and we even started learning to speak Spanish. We followed blogs by other American ex-pats in Costa Rica, we made it our full time job to read material about our new land. It was very fun practicing with the girls and discussing whether we wanted to live on the coast or in the mountains. We decided that it would be interesting and good practice to try to live without some of our American comforts, or at the very least we would jump well out of bounds of our comfort zone before we actually moved. We cut off cable just around the time that digital signals became a requirement and without cable we had no television. We still had the laptop but no service without short trips to the Wi-Fi hot spot. It was a very educational experience for us. We learned that we liked to play scrabble and we learned to exist together without electronic distractions. We learned to use our television to watch movies on purpose, with intention and as an occasion not as background noise. We started eating together and eating unusual meals, different varieties of foods, off brands, different brands. Knowing the likelihood that we couldn’t get Duke’s Mayonnaise or Jiff peanut butter in Costa Rica we were practicing to choose differently and notice the good and notice the unpleasant. We stopped using paper products and started walking more and more. We began to frame our lives around being in Costa Rica. Our girls were excited about not going to school at first or homeschooling. We were very keen on moving about freely, lowering our cost of living and improving our chances of mere contentment. “When we get to Costa Rica…” It was so common that it became bigger than our family. “Going to Costa Rica” would make all of everyday’s trouble go away. We were evolving yes, for certain, but not fast enough to realize that we were delaying some of our Costa Rica ideals until our passports were stamped. Sure we had sold eighty percent of our furniture, clothing, kitchen items and toys. Sure we had gone without TV and creature comforts, but saying that we would spend more time with each other when we got to Costa Rica was just silly. We could spend any amount of time we wanted together in Greer, S.C. The upside of really focusing on our family dynamic and planning in this way is that you have time, time to dream, time to plan and for us most importantly time to change our minds. Time to change our lives was ours, ours alone. Some friends upon hearing that we would move to Costa Rica were so limited in their imagination were compelled to ask what we were running from. These accusations were hurtful at first and then somewhat funny – we questioned ourselves. What we were running toward and away from and the short list was the religion of consumerism that is so prevalent in our part of the world. We wanted to get away from the fat people at the buffet, stuffing themselves in oblivion, unaware of how sick they made others. We wanted to get away from our own stagnant routine, our lack of enthusiasm for the lovely farmhouse we lived in. We wanted to be away from racism, stupidity and spoiled kids. We wanted to change and so we did, all the way up to the passports. We changed our entire family and decided we would move, but stopped just short of going. We would enjoy a new house, newly built and in a community we truly love. We decided we could ultimately control what happened in our home and choose if we wanted to look away from the buffet table. We chose to accept the simple impending truth that John would eventually be unable to continue to stand for work. We accepted that his limitations would make Costa Rica less than what we wanted. We came to understand that for our family alone, Costa Rica and this trip we had planned had really turned into a journey. We could imagine, plan, implement and concede and build all in a short time, without checking in with each and every family member, friend and acquaintance for permission or acceptance. People that know me have heard big ideas from me before and perhaps one day I will have heard another – the Costa Rica idea was actually something that my husband came up with and I am so happy he did. So excited in fact that I told everyone I knew and everyone I met about it. How incredible it was to think about being in third-world paradise that was mostly bi-lingual, where the schools are taught in English and where our dollar was worth more. I was incredibly chatty about our trip, our discoveries and our intentions. I was also childishly embarrassed when we changed our minds. I was convinced that my friends would think I was crazy. Crazy for planning the trip, crazy for telling people and perhaps crazy for thinking we could do it. I was embarrassed and still stung from the skeptics that doubted our motives. I didn’t get over the initial embarrassment until we started building a home in Taylors. Our values are never constant and neither is our situation. Life changes and being comfortable with the fact that it does is very, very cool. I can’t imagine where life will actually take us, but I am thankful we are here and thankful for now. I can idle or throttle or fly, so long as I pause to take a bearing and navigate for myself. I still want to travel to Costa Rica. I feel like the notion of going there was more rewarding than the trip.
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